Business People Vermont May 2017 : Page 26

CONTRIBUTED COLUMN Personnel Points by Dave Mount, Westaff Reinvent yourself 26 in business in the first place. You only need to go back a few years to the bank-ruptcy of two of our country’s largest corpora-tions, GM and Chrysler, to see how this complacency works. GM and Chrysler used the bankruptcy proceedings to reinvent themselves. Slashing models and nameplates, they became shadows of their former selves and they survived. I heard a talk recently about how the great companies of the world approach their business. They begin with the question “why.” Traditionally, we have looked at our businesses and asked the question “what” or “how,” but asking “why” leads to a whole set of paradigms. Some of the most exciting and creative com-panies in the world use this model to operate. Take Apple for example. When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, the company was close to bankruptcy. They began to ask why and the com-pany morphed into an icon that brought us the iPod, iPhone, and iPad over the next 20 years. Apple changed the way we work and also changed the company culture substantially. Even today, an Apple product announcement is a major media event. When we ask, “Why?” the whole essence of what we do and why we do it comes into play. The point of all of this is that we need to look at our companies from BUSINESS PEOPLE–VERMONT • MAY 2017 C ompanies are like people: They get into a rut. They do the same things year after year and it eventu-ally becomes rote, and you forget why you are